Scalia on ‘living’ Constitution: ‘It’s dead, dead, dead!’

Supreme Court Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia used a Monday lecture at Southern Methodist University to go after those who argue that the U.S. Constitution is a “living document” subject to interpretation in light of lessons from history and the intent of lawgivers.

“It’s not a living document: It’s dead, dead, dead,” Scalia said, as reported by The Dallas Morning News. Scalia is an outspoken conservative and a self-described “textualist” who believes texts should be interpreted by their literal meaning.

Antonin Scalia at the American Enterprise Institute on Oct. 2, 2012. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Scalia was appearing with SMU law professor Bryan Garner, with whom he has coauthored a book: “Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Text. ”

“I will tell you my political beliefs are different from those of Justice Scalia,” Garner joked. He is a supporter of same-sex marriage and stricter gun control laws.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in two landmark cases involving marriage equality, namely legal challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage and to California’s Proposition 8, a voter-passed measure which rolled back same-sex marriage in America’s largest state.

The “living document” debate has come to the fore in recent days.

In a recent interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that “there are some things in the Constitution that are black and white,” but added that there are “provisions that are very general in the Constitution.” She cited its prohibition against “unreasonable search and seizure.” “What does ‘unreasonable’ mean? What’s a search and seizure?” Sotomayor asked.

“To talk about ‘strict interpretation’ those are not words I use and not words that I think have much meaning,” Sotomayor added, citing the elements of facts, precedent and history that go into the Supreme Court’s decision-making.

Scalia has actually been heard, repeatedly, particularly on the subject of gay and lesbian rights.

He wrote a furious dissent in the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas case, in which a 6-3 Supreme Court majority threw out sodomy laws and reversed a decision made 17 years earlier. Scalia called it a furthering of the “homosexual agenda,” and wrote: “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their businesses, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”

And, in a Princeton University lecture in December, he argued: “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”